


The Friend of My Friend

by tittysatan



Series: Unholy Trinity [1]
Category: Devilman
Genre: Drug Use, Gen, ambiguous miki/akira, ambiguous ryo/akira
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-31
Updated: 2017-03-31
Packaged: 2018-10-13 09:33:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10511049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tittysatan/pseuds/tittysatan
Summary: Akira's missing. That is to say, the one thing that could prompt Miki and Ryo to interact has come to pass.





	

Miki's smile collapsed into an annoyed pout as soon as she opened the door. "Oh. It's you. What do you want."

"I'm looking for Akira, is he here?" Ryo asked, clearly no happier to see her than she was to see him.

"No, he hasn't been back home for two days, I thought he was with you...?"

"That son of a..." Ryo muttered, turning on his heel and heading back towards his car.

Miki ran after him, still in her house slippers. "Wait just a sec, is Akira missing? Do you know where he might be?"

Ryo ignored her, getting into the car and turning on the ignition, only to stop with an exasperated sigh as Miki stood in front of the car. "Get out of the way or I'll run you down."

"Like hell you will," she snapped. "If you're going to look for him, I'm coming with you."

"You are _not_."

"Nope! This is non-negotiable," she said, slipping around and into the passenger's sear before Ryo had a chance to stop her. "...can you even drive?"

Ryo's only response was to slam down on the gas, peeling out into the street at a terrifying speed and hurtling off towards the highway out of town.

"Holy shit, you _can_ drive!" she laughed, holding on for dear life as Ryo drifted around a corner. He grinned, just for a second, before catching himself and forcing a glare back onto his face. "Any idea where he is?"

"I've got a hunch," Ryo said, turning off onto a winding road up to the mountains.

"That's all?"

"My hunches are pretty good."

"Well, it's not like we've got anything else to go on."

For a while they drove in silence, Ryo concentrating on navigating the car around the bends, Miki staring contemplatively at him.

"So..." she started, "are you two fucking?"

Ryo was so surprised, he almost drove off the cliff.

"Like, I thought he had to be getting some lately, right? I never would've guessed it was with a boy, though!" she snickered. "Honestly though? You're so pretty I can't even be mad."

"...don't call me that," Ryo muttered.

"What, pretty? You _are_ , though. You're almost as pretty as I am, and that's saying something."

Ryo jerked the steering wheel, making Miki's head slam into the window.

"What the fuck was that for!?" she snapped. "It was a compliment!"

"I don't want your 'compliments,'" he said through gritted teeth.

"Fine." She crossed her arms huffily. "More for me, then."

This time, Miki stared sulkily out the window, and Ryo was the one stealing glances at her.

"So are you and Akira...?"

Miki turned back with a smirk. "So what if we are?" she laughed.

Ryo didn't reply, but his expression hardened just a shade.

"I hope he's okay..." Miki sighed. "Any idea how much farther?"

"Hard to say. Still a long ways."

"God, what would he be _doing_ out here? That idiot..." She drummed her fingers nervously on the car door, staring out at the road. "Hey, you know why he's been acting so weird lately, right? It was after you showed up, you have to have something to do with it."

"...It's none of your business."

"Excuse me?" she laughed. "He's my houseguest and my friend, of course it's my business! Now spit it out."

Ryo glanced over at the serious, determined face of the girl next to him, her expression so similar to Akira's on the night everything began. A pure-hearted youth who loves justice, huh...

"If Akira didn't tell you, I won't either," he said, turning away. "But it's important."

"How important?"

"The most important thing imaginable."

"Well, now I'm even more pissed at being left out," she sulked. "As soon as we find Akira, I'm putting him in a headlock and not letting go until he tells me _everything_."

Ryo couldn't help but laugh at the thought, trying to stifle it as Miki joined in but unable to.

"If anything happened to him," Ryo said, finally managing to put a serious face on again, "I'm going to kill him."

"I know, right?" Miki sighed. "He's always like this lately. Stupid reckless dumbass. He'd better be okay."

"He'd damn well better."

They climbed further into the mountains, passing fewer and fewer cars on their way.

"Hey, pull over," Miki said as they approached a tiny rest stop, just a few benches, a bathroom, and some vending machines. "I'll grab something to eat."

Ryo stopped the car and watched as Miki jogged up to the vending machines and rummaged in her pockets for change. _It would be so easy to slam the door shut and drive off and leave her to walk home_ , he thought. _It'd serve her right for forcing herself into this._

He pulled a joint from his pocket and lit up, unrolling the window to let the smoke out. _Akira would be mad_ , he told himself, staring down at the city below. _That's the only reason._

Miki sat down next to him, arms full of snacks, and sniffed a few times. "Oh wow, is that weed? Gimme, gimme!" Ryo passed it over and she took a deep drag, holding it before breathing out long and slow. "Ah, that's the stuff~"

"I didn't know you smoked," he said, taking the joint back.

She just shrugged, smiling. "There's a lot you don't know about me. Anyways, I got you black coffee and chips. You don't seem like the sweets type."

Ryo popped open the coffee can, only slightly annoyed that she was right.

"You sure you can drive stoned?" Miki asked, opening her bag of cookies.

"I'll be fine," he said, taking a sip of coffee, then another drag.

"Well, if you say so," she shrugged, "let's hurry up and get going, Akira's waiting."

"You're the one who wanted to stop..." Ryo muttered under his breath as he pulled back onto the road.

The forest grew thicker around them as they drove, casting diagrams of light and shadow over the car. Miki sipped her milk tea, occasionally passing chips to Ryo when he held out a hand.

"Mind if I turn the radio on?" she asked after a while. "If I don't have something to distract me I'll worry myself crazy."

"Go ahead," Ryo said.

She flipped through stations until settling on something loud and abrasive and generally unpleasant to listen to, which is to say exactly the kind of music Ryo liked. He caught himself smiling, just a little, as he watched her bob her head in time.

"Not that much further now, I think," he said. "We'll probably have to walk part of the way."

"Is he okay?"

"How should I know?"

"The same way you apparently know where he is," she said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Ryo shut everything else out, concentrating on something he couldn't name. "...he's okay."

"Oh, thank god," Miki said, collapsing back into her seat with a relieved sigh. "Say, thanks for bringing me along."

"...you didn't exactly give me a choice."

"Yeah, but you could've been a real dick about it, and you weren't. You mostly weren't."

Ryo just kept driving, letting the music crash on his ears.

It wasn't that much later when he pulled the car over to the side of the road and turned off the ignition. "He's off that way," he said, gesturing out towards the trees as he got out of the car.

"Great! Let's find him so we can beat him up for being such an idiot," Miki said, jumping out.

"...are you seriously planning to hike through the woods in those?" Ryo asked, gesturing at her now-filthy house slippers.

"Unless you're offering to carry me? Yes. Now hurry up and lead the way."

Ryo sighed and started off through the trees at a jog, Miki following close behind.

"You'd better be right about this intuition thing," she said, pushing aside branches, "or else we've gone a hell of a long ways out for nothing. Maybe we should've just called the cops..."

"They'd be useless. This isn't something they could deal with."

Miki sighed. "All of this ominous cryptic bullshit... As soon as we find Akira, I'm getting some answers out of one of you."

Ryo opened his mouth to say something, but immediately forgot when his eye caught a speck of red through the foliage. "Akira!" he cried, breaking into a sprint, stumbling over roots and branches as he ran and not caring, standing frozen over the battered and motionless body of his friend.

He couldn't move as Miki caught up to him and pulled Akira's head up into her lap, saying something he couldn't process, putting her head to his chest to check for a heartbeat. It was only when he saw her tears that he realized he was crying too.

"He's alive," she was saying, "he's alive, thank god, what's he _doing_ here, what do we _do?_ "

Catching himself, Ryo turned away and wiped his face on his sleeve. "Help me get him on my back. We'll take him back to the car, see if we can wake him up there."

"Right... Right." Miki wiped her eyes, nodded firmly, helped Ryo drape his coat over Akira's unconscious body and hoist him up so Ryo could carry him.

They walked back in silence, Miki fussing nervously over Akira, unsure what to do, Ryo concentrating on jostling him as little as possible. Back at the car, they lay him down in the backseat, Miki tilting his head back to pour a little milk tea between his chapped lips, then a little more.

After what felt like hours of silent, anxious waiting, Akira's eyes opened.

"Oh...hey," he said, staring up and Miki and Ryo's red-eyed faces, and smiled weakly.

"You _idiot!_ " Miki cried, bursting into tears again, holding him so tight he winced with pain. "What were you doing out there?! Why didn't you tell anyone where you went?! Oh god, what if you had died?!" That was all she could manage before dissolving into sobs.

"Ha ha...sorry..." Akira murmured, stroking her hair fondly.

Ryo just stared down at him, too angry and relieved to form cohesive thoughts.

"...I knew you'd come find me," Akira said, smiling up at him, and he hated the way it made tears spring to his eyes.

"Of course I did," he muttered. "Don't _ever_ do this again."

"Thanks, Miki, Ryo," he murmured. "I think... I'm gonna sleep a bit more."

"You really mean sleep, right?!" Miki glared at him. "You're not gonna die on us, right?!"

"Never."

They buckled Akira into the backseat as he slept and started back down the road in silence. By the time Ryo realized it, Miki had dozed off as well, snoring quietly with her face squished against the window. He kept driving. This time he actually obeyed the speed limit, occasionally glancing in the rearview mirror at Akira, just reassuring himself that he was still there, still safe.

The sun began to set, dyeing a sky a violent, beautiful red.

"You're not a bad guy," Miki said sleepily as Ryo turned off for the highway into town. "You love him too, right? That's good enough for me."

Ryo's only response was to blush.

"I don't know what this super important secret you two are keeping from me is, but I want in."

"It's dangerous. You might die."

"I don't care. If there's something serious going on, I want to help."

Glancing over, he could see that she meant it.

"We'll wait until Akira's better," Ryo said. "Then the three of us can talk it over."

"Promise?"

"Yeah."

"I'm gonna hold you to that."

The conversation ended there. Akira was brought to the hospital, where a doctor assured them he'd be perfectly alright with a few weeks of rest, Miki was dropped off in front of her house, and Ryo headed back to his apartment.

Miki's words kept running through his head.

_You love him too, right? That's good enough for me._

If it was good enough for her, maybe it could be good enough for him.

**Author's Note:**

> Miki and Ryo seem like they'd get along well if they actually spent any time together, since they really do have a lot in common.


End file.
